Parallel Theory: Displacement Series: Sephiroth Reincarnated
by Abyssal Angel
Summary: Rated M just in case. Have you ever wondered what you would do if you ever woke up and found yourself in a completely new place and a different body? Well this story is one step towards my finding out! Join me as I'm hit with the memories and abilities of our favorite General, Sephiroth! DISCLAIMER: If you recognize it, I don't own it! I only own myself.
1. Chapter 1

I was walking home from school one day after the bus had dropped me off. It was on the main road before the turn off onto my street that a sigil appeared floating above me, glowing a bright green. A flash of white rushed from the sky to the sigil, then into me and I couldn't see it was so bright. Then all of a sudden, it was over, and I suddenly became aware of a number of changes to my person.

First of which, a weight on the back of my head had me reach back and pulling long silver tresses of hair forward over my shoulder, that reached down to my knees. The next thing I noticed is that my clothing has changed. I'm wearing long black leather gloves, and looking down, I notice I'm wearing a long black leather overcoat with black straps criss crossed over my bare chest, and I'm wearing black loose pants with black leather military style boots. Shocked, I jumped back and threw my hands out in surprise. Suddenly a hilt appeared in my hand, and with a wave of green light, a ridiculously long sword literally sprouted in my hands, one so iconic I couldn't help but recognize it.

I knew in an instant what had happened. I want to deny it, but somehow my mind, which had suddenly gone extremely analytical and had started memorizing every single thing happening in my surroundings, summarily cataloging and dismissing them based on threat level almost out of habit, refused to let me do so. The facts all point to one thing, and I'm not going to throw out a hypothesis due to supposed impossibilities. I am now General Sephiroth.

Quickly, I release my blade, which immediately returns to my personal storage space within a dimensional pocket of my own life stream. Most know how to access such a thing in Midgar after a certain age, but I think I may be the only one that has learned to transfer my sword to and from that space upon subconscious command, having trained extensively to do so. Most others require a mental link to it, such as reaching into a pocket or a satchel in order to access their storage space, unlike I, who was trained to do so without the need for such a mental handicap. Curse Hojo to the pits of hell, but he did have his uses.

A quick review of the surveyed surroundings shows that no one saw my transformation. Lucky break, though expected. This part of the road mainly has backyards facing the street, so the likelihood of having been spotted is low. Unfortunately, I cannot go home in this state. I would appear to be a stranger simply strolling into my own home. I could simply explain the situation, but I doubt it would be accepted. I further expect things would degenerate further in that regard. No, it's best I cut ties with my former family.

My brain quickly processes a number of scenarios of how to do such a thing. Simply disappearing would leave them searching for me, wondering where I'd gone or if they'd done something wrong. Unacceptable. I am not heartless. 'Running away' or writing a suicide note are both summarily rejected for the same reason. Faking my death is a possibility. It would hurt my family, but at least there would be some closure there.

A quick review of the materia I have available leaves me frowning. I only have one available. It's an exit materia. That's unfortunate, but it does open up the possibility of perhaps reappearing on Gaia upon use. The only question would then be how to reintegrate myself into things happening there. With the knowledge I now possess of much of the lore of my new/former home world, I'm certain things will proceed far differently no matter where/when I put myself back into that world.

Having decided, I turn towards my family home. With no materia to cast an illusion with, I have no recourse but to simply inform my family of the situation via a letter. Whether they accept it is their own prerogative.

Thinking quickly, I make a run to the nearest school, my old elementary school, to get myself some free stationary and a pencil to write with. On the way I had to struggle to keep my speed down to a level acceptable for a human my age and size. I got more than a number of stares on the way, even from people in cars. Even if they don't recognize me, it doesn't surprise me considering my exotic looks and the fact that I'm running under the hot Florida sun in black leather. If people didn't think I'm nuts, I'd be worried.

Finding a faculty leaving the building wasn't hard. It wasn't hard either to convince them to allow me into the building to retrieve some paper and a pen either. Again, I'm certain my looks and voice helped me here. My, that is, Sephiroth's voice has been described as sultry before. I couldn't even begin to express the gratitude I felt in the fact that both my original self and Sephiroth are both left handed. Well, truly Sephiroth is ambidextrous, but outside of combat, he writes and eats like a lefty. Having this match up makes writing the letter easy, even if I would have been able to compartmentalize the abilities easily if I'd originally been right handed.

A quick run soon had me back at my home. Thanks to the time when my high school gets out, I'm normally home alone for at least an hour before my Mom comes home from work. Since the trip too and from the elementary school took me 37 minutes, I have at minimum 23 minutes until anyone shows up. Perfect timing. I slide the letter into the crack in between the door and the jam on the side. I then walk into my backyard through the metal gate.

As soon as it creaks open, my dog Cocoa comes running. The brown spotted dalmation growls and barks at first, but crouching down and holding out my hand for a sniff, I'm soon able to pet her like normal, the big softie. I'm really going to miss her. I'll miss my family too, but a cynical part of me wonders if they'll miss me or the chores I finished more. I know that's not really fair, but whoever said emotions are? As the youngest in a family of 8, feeling a little neglected is to be expected when both parents have full time jobs and are overworked in order to keep us fed. It's not my fault they hardly have time for us and when they do, it's usually to correct faults. They did the best they could under the circumstances.

Shaking my head, I stood up from my crouch. Cocoa just stood by, wagging her tail, tongue lolling out of her mouth. I'm tempted to let her inside, but settle for refilling her water bowl on the back porch. Taking a last look around at the backyard I'd never have to mow again, I figure that's enough nostalgia. I've already committed the place to my excellent memory, so I'm not bound to forget this home anytime soon. Nodding to myself, I held up my arm and cast the Exit materia. With a flash, I leave Earth, and the Sol system behind.


	2. Chapter 2A - Crisis Core - The Beginning

I blinked. I'm in an office. My back is to a wall. To my right and front is a wrap around corner window. I'm in a corner office as far as I can tell. My desk is in the corner, with a couch of all things next to the door.

First item of business. Where am I?

Standing up, I walk over to the window and look down. Midgar is sprawled out before me, like some giant demented steam punk pizza. I commend the idea of multiple story cities, but not when they choke out the sun or liberal use of air scrubbers on the bottom floors. Sucking the life force out of the planet is also of the bad.

Well that answers where I am. I'm probably in my office in one of the upper levels of Shinra Headquarters. I note with some annoyance that the only memories I seem to have from Sephiroth only coincide with what I've already seen from the games. Everything else is a blank. That's going to be troublesome in the future.

I hear footsteps outside my door followed by knocking. Before I can even contemplate answering, the door swings open and in strides Genesis and Angeal. I narrow my eyes, but keep my vision on the windows as well as them. As nice as the view is, the giant window just screams 'security risk' but then again, at our power levels, walls are practically the same thing, just not see through.

Angeal remains quiet. Genesis starts quoting Loveless at me. Unfortunately, I somehow seem to be quoting back passages to him on automatic. I can barely comprehend what he's saying, but it seems he's asking for a spar. Normally I would be all for this, but I also know it was a spar that started that whole mess with Genesis' degredation. I frown.

"Genesis, have you ever been injured before?"

My seemingly nonsequitor throws them off. Angeal's brows furrow then suddenly Genesis seems pissed. Too late, I realize he's taken my question as some sort of insult that I'm going to injure him in a spar. Damn our past interactions for not allowing us to speak straight and plain!

Genesis postures a little, brandishing his blade, and spouts more Loveless. In plainspeak he says, "You think you'll harm me? I'm not so weak. If anything I'll hurt you!"

Angeal puts a hand on Genesis shoulder and says, "Genesis." That's it. To my horror, I actually understand the silence behind it. In plainspeak, he's saying, "Let it go, Sephiroth didn't mean anything by it. Calm down. Nothing will be accomplished by overacting and fighting here."

Genesis makes a 'Tch' sound and his blade disappears into his coat.

"I meant no insult. Some information has recently come to light, and I'm attempting to make sense of it."

Genesis tilts his head and says, in plainspeak (I'm not going to do the whole loveless thing anymore. Just assume he's spouting poetry in confusing anecdotes.), "No, I've not received injury before. What did you find out?"

I purse my lips and wonder what to say. I know I could just not say anything. Spout some loveless gibberish, but in my opinion, Sephiroth being an A-hole is half the reason Genesis turned out the way he did. Of course it could be too late in that regard, but I'm not going to not try.

But if I did say something, how would I explain my source? The only thing I truly know is that Genesis starts to degrade upon being cut by Masamune in the game. What, am I going to tell him I get visions from the future now? Actually, if I couch it in terms of that, plus that Goddess bit from Loveless, he just might buy it.

I spout the explanation between lines of Loveless on automatic. Angeal's look conveys, "You can't be serious."

Genesis, in plainspeak, responds, "Seriously?"

I nod.

Angeal looks to be just going along with delusions. Genesis, luckily, is buying it, mostly. I explain that I saw the three of us sparring and Genesis took a hit, and that over time it caused his body to degrade and grow old. I was about to explain the wings bit, but then I turned to Angeal and asked, "What makes a monster, his appearance or his actions?"

That really hits close to home for all three of us and I can see it. I wait a few moments for them to digest that, then explain about the wings and some of the experimentation Hollander put them through.

"I propose that we corner Hollander and take him far away from Shinra and have him fix what he did wrong in both of you. I won't sit back and let my friends die from his mistakes."

It takes a little bit of coercion, but considering they both went AWOL in the first place, all three of us eventually storm the science levels, but not before raiding the SOLDIER armory for materia. That part was easy since we hadn't done anything yet, so they practically gave it to us. While the selection wasn't quite what Cloud had by the end of FF7, I was still able to get some nice ones. Between a Gold Armlet and my Masamune, I had five linked pairs for materia slots. I grabbed a Sense, HP Plus, Added Affect, and Fire, all mastered, for the Gold Armlet. Considering they had no counterattack materia, I simply grabbed three mastered all, and paired them with mastered Ice, Lightning, and Earth for my Masamune. Not exactly the loadout I'd prefer, but it should be useful anyway.

As soon as we were down in the labs, I may have added a little bit of wanton destruction, destroying all the science equipment I could get my hands on, killing monsters and letting any scientists I didn't recognize flee. We ended up cornering Hojo as well as Hollander. To my utter delight, he had Jenova on site. I heard her whispers in the back of my head, explaining things with her skewed point of view. It might have worked even, if I didn't know the truth. Some swift materia use and some application of my sword had the abomination and Hojo along with it vaporized. I let Genesis and Angeal go on without me. I would make sure neither of these two had even a trace left by the time I'd done. I had to cast more fire twice before the deed had finished.

I found Angeal and Genesis cornering Hollander. With that bit covered, I continued on, searching for Deep Ground. After a while, and getting lost, I may have gotten just a touch impatient and started cutting my way down through the floor. By sheer luck I dropped in front of Nero, barely a teen and since I'm not stuck in a separate dimension yet, obviously doesn't have control of his powers yet.

It's as I'm staring him down that I realize I've no real idea what to do about these guys. His older brother Weiss only started to cause problems when Hojo invaded his mind. Deciding to go for broke, I tell him to avoid letting his brother do Deep Dives or else a digitized version of Hojo may invade and usurp his personality. That said, Nero is looking at me weirdly. I warn him if ever Deep Ground starts causing trouble I'll come back to finish the place off myself. With that I left, Nero's look bewildered and calculating.

I make my way back to Genesis and Angeal. They're still in the same room as before and Angeal is watching as Hollander works on Genesis strapped to the table.

I look to Angeal and ask, "You have this covered?" Angeal nods.

I nod back and said, "It's high time we ended this. You can find me upstairs."

"Sephiroth."

I turned back to see Angeal watching me intently. His look conveys, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

I nod. He looks me in the eye for a moment, then turns back to make sure Hollander doesn't screw his best friend over.

I make my way back up the elevators to the top floor. I'm not surprised to find Shinra troops barring the way, what with the fleeing scientists probably warning everyone. I narrow my eyes. I don't have time for this. I need to get to the top floor before someone intelligent attempts to evacuate the President, Heideigger, or Scarlet.

Almost as if in response, a black wing manifests on my back. The Shinra troopers were already shaking, but now they look ready to poop their pants. I smirk at them. It's their lucky day really. Almost on instinct, I shoot forward using the wing to propel myself towards them and knock them out with a, comparatively, light tap with the flat of my blade to knock them out.

Doing some quick calculations, I realize I don't have time to take the Elevator. With no other recourse, I fly out the closest window and shoot up to the top floor.

A helicopter is waiting with Scarlet and Heideigger already on it. President Shinra is waddling his way as fast as his fat legs can carry him. Smirking, I skewer him through the back, shooting a dark look at the two in the chopper. I can't help but find the irony that this is the exact position that my clone would have killed Aeris in the future. Speaking of which, I'm going to have to keep an eye out for said clones just in case any of them show up now even with Hojo gone.

Sliding my sword out, I lop off his head just for good measure. Can never be too careful in cases like this. The chopper attempts to lift off, but sticking my sword into the blades of the chopper sends it careening on its side and off the building. Not the brightest move. Some of the shrapnel hits me and stings, but my body soon shoves the pieces out and regenerates on its own. It all happened so fast that no one had moved except to jump away after the chopper fell over the side. In the spirit of not taking chances, I dove over the side after it, and followed it down. Even ended up having to save some poor shmucks who were under where it would've crashed.

The helicopter did a nice fireball impression upon landing. I stalked through the flames, marveling the lack of heat thanks to the materia setup I had. Heideigger and Scarlet both look dead, but again, not taking any chances, so I lop their heads off.

With that done, I fly back to the roof. I'm tempted to sit in the President's chair, but I decide not to and simply sit on the roof and look out on the horizon. With the immediate problems addressed, all that's left to do is wait. Some Turks show up, but they wisely don't fire a shot. I glance down at them, spotting Tseng and focus on him. He stares back.

"You can tell Rufus Shinra that the chair's all his. The head of the snake has been cut. Now all that's left is to draw out the poison."

Tseng's eyes narrowed, but he promptly spoke into his PHS. I could hear him from here, though I don't think he knows that, as he repeats what I said word for word.

Time passes. Zack shows up by this point. His clothing is different. I think he may still be a second class at this point. I'm not sure.

"General! Sephiroth, why did you do this? The President is dead! The-" I'm sure he would've continued, but Rufus Shinra showed up at this point, and the puppy wisely fell silent. Rufus and I had a conversation. I explained some of what I found down in the science labs and info about those I'd killed. I essentially made it look like I'd discovered the worst of conspiracies and executed the betrayers, which is exactly what I'd done from a certain point of view. I just made it look like they were betraying Shinra rather than betraying general morality and humanity.

It was at this point that Rufus and I ended up in a negotiation of sorts. We would have a tighter watch, with the Turks, in the guise of promoting inter departmental unity. I would be under a house arrest of sorts along with my fellow generals. I accepted, couching it in rather clear terms that the Mako plants would be dismantled and replaced with a clean alternative. Considering the sheer amount of space around, solar panels would not be remiss, and that Reeve would be a good choice to get things rolling in that direction. I also made it fairly clear that if this didn't happen, I'd finish what Avalanche started. I had to pat myself on the back for that one, considering Rufus was the one who funded Avalanche in the first place.

Negotiations complete, I was 'escorted' to my apartment on the floor above my office. Turns out all us Soldier firsts live on the same level above our apartments. That's handy. Zack came with. I offhandedly suggested that he introduce his flower girl to Reeve to 'spread the flowers around' as such. Zack, surprisingly had fallen silent. I'm not sure he knows what to do with me at this point. I'm pretty sure he knows I won't explain anything with Turks around, and you can bet there will be surveillance in my rooms now if there weren't before.

As the days passed after that, Rufus held true to his word. The Turks ended up doing their own digging, corroborating everything I'd told Rufus. Zack seemed to accept this, and was also glad that both of the other Generals were in a far better moods now what with Hollander having fixed them both up. They have wings now, but I'm pretty sure they realize with my question that having wings doesn't necessarily make them monsters.

Speaking of Hollander, he got his own Turk detail keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't pull a Hojo. He's now in charge of the SOLDIER treatments, which now lack any Jenova cells and use Mako primarily.

In a grand speech about embracing the future of clean energy, Rufus started phasing out the Mako plants and implementing solar plants and wind turbines. Already the lower levels below the plate are starting to look more green. My SOLDIERs are going on monster hunts everyday, and I join them on occasion for morale purposes as well as making sure I don't go rusty. Regular spars with Genesis and Angeal helped with that as well.

Aeris did indeed get with Reeve now that Hojo is gone, and has basically become the vice president of the Urban sector. They're really doing a good job fixing things up for the Slums, opening up certain spots in the plates to allow natural light in.

When the time came for the rocket launch, I made sure to attend. The other firsts came with me out of curiosity since I'd shown interest in it. As before, Shera nearly had Cid abort the launch while fixing the rocket. That would have happened if I hadn't flown in and gotten her out in time. Thanks to that, the launch went ok, Cid got to go to space, and Palmer's division got more funding. Eventually Palmer did end up getting replaced with Cid himself. I was glad of that.

As more time passed, I watched as a certain chocobo haired protagonist was taken under Zack's wing, and consequently Angeal's, and actually made it into SOLDIER this time. Zack, now part of the firsts, is doing well. He and Aeris are still hitting it off, and without Hojo and Shinra in the way, they're really hitting it off. Cloud and Tifa are also shyly giving it a shot. I frequent the bar for lunch often, which has promoted their place quite handily.

Eventually the Turks let up on the house arrest a bit. It certainly helps that with the way I acted, it was more like I was taking Rufus' idea of interdepartmental cooperation to heart rather than as a cover. I ended up taking Veld with me to help retrieve Lucrecia from her crystal prison. Talking her out of there was difficult, but I imagine it helped when I told her what happened and that Hojo is gone. She ended up asking for my forgiveness and I gave it.

With Lucrecia in tow, as well Cloud, Zack, Angeal, and Genesis, all of them rather annoyed I left them behind when I went to go retrieve my mother of all things, we went to Nibelheim to retrieve Vincent. I made sure to bring a mirror. The mako plant there is already in the process of being dismantled. Lucrecia and I coaxed Vincent out of his coffin. Veld being there certainly helped. I helpfully held the mirror angled at Vincent and asked him what he got if he pictured my hair black and with red eyes. Zack actually fainted, and the look on Vincent's face was priceless. Lucrecia ended up embracing him rather tearfully when she realized Hojo wasn't my father at all. She ended up asking him for forgiveness too. I think he would've gone into an angsty brooding if I hadn't mentioned to him at that point that 'Sins can be forgiven if you at least try. Do nothing and they certainly won't be.'

I also ended up picking up the counterattack materia and leveling the heck out of that thing when I swung by the Mako plant to check on things. It wasn't hard to come up with a pretense to go there when I mentioned that some of Hojo's papers pointed that as a place for specimen storage. Granted, during the dismantling that part was already taken care of, but it was still good to clear up that loose end.

Speaking of loose ends, I ended up nudging Reeve in to focusing on Gongaga for Zack's sake. I also found Dio and convinced him to take me on as a partner and build the Gold Saucer in Wutai. Rufus wasn't thrilled by that, but there wasn't much he could do about it. I even ended up meeting Bugenhagen and Nanaki at Cosmo Canyon. Let's just say I did a lot of travelling and picked up a lot of things, with several others along for the ride for various reasons. Having the Highwind on call as Cid 'returning a favor' is the way he put it (though with a lot more cursing) made doing that easy. I also ended up visiting that sword smith on the Western Continent and commissioned First Tsurugi for Cloud for when he becomes a first himself.

I ended up leaving the Weapons alone. I did a lot of work attempting to redeem myself with the Wutaiians. Even ended up meeting a nice woman there who came back to Shinra as an ambassador. It seems convincing Dio to build the Gold Saucer there went a longer way to repairing things than I expected.

Love, life, and friendship. What more could I ask for? And to think when this first started, I thought it might be harder, but then, sometimes the simplest answers are really the best.


End file.
